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Comment by jbob2000 | Hacker News Reader

jbob2000

Yes! I've been working with React-Native on a side project for a few weeks now. WHAT A GODSEND! Before this, I was using Titanium, which is heavy, slow, and difficult to integrate with. React-Native felt like home.

On a related note; Why is it up to Facebook to develop something like this? Why aren't Apple and Google making it this easy to develop apps? ObjC is a nightmare, 90% of apps out there don't need that level of control.

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Why aren't Apple and Google making it this easy to develop apps?

Apple has no incentive to make it easier for app developers to port their code to other platforms.

Has Apple ever chosen a non-native app for its annual design awards?

You mean not including the vast number of Unity based games that are there?

was there ever non-native app worth a reward?

But it does have incentive for app developers on other platforms to port code to their own platform.

Apple probably doesn't concern itself with any developers that don't want to be on their platform. In fact they probably find the notion so inconceivable that they wouldn't see any value in that developer's app.

Are there any "unicorn" apps that are Android only and intend to stay that way?

Torque Pro[1] -- it's the reason I bought my first Android phone. On the flip side, there's ForeFlight[2].

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq... [2] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foreflight-mobile/id33325263...

Absolutely and I don't think any other company could think in this way and succeed as wildly as Apple have.

> Are there any "unicorn" apps that are Android only and intend to stay that way?

Chrome? Also Gmail, Google Now, and Facebook Messenger on iOS are garbage compared to Android.

Chrome is available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/chrome/id15979771

It's just stuck being the Chrome around UIWebView instead of fully featured Chrome, which is unfortunate.

Chrome?

I could be wrong but I am pretty sure I am typing this response in Chrome on a Windows box right now, so maybe not the best example of an Android only app.

I figured we were talking in the context of Android vs. iOS.

Fair enough. But even Chrome missing from iOS is mostly just an annoyance to tech types. Nobody is trading in their iPhone for a Nexus just to get Chrome, it's not the same as when Instagram was iOS only.

Chrome is available on the App store, friend.

They incentivize people porting to iOS by being a great platform with tons of customers, many of which are willing to pay. That's why so many apps launch on iOS first (much to my dismay as a diehard Android user).

Why Google hasn't done this, I don't know. Seems like it is in their best interest and something they're already doing internally. They use the shared web/Android/iOS code concept for Inbox (but not HTML/JS)[1] and probably other projects.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/11/how-go...

Dont they use this j2objc? https://github.com/google/j2objc

Sure, but that works in reverse. People could easily port their code TO iOS.

Unfortunately everyone writes iOS first nowadays because rich people overwhelmingly own iOS devices.

You could probably replace "rich" by "people willing to pay money for apps". Although even on iOS this is less and less true.

That, and because development is way easier.

I'm curious why you say that.

You have to learn a whole new Apple-only programming language to do iOS (Swift or Objective-C) in addition to the iOS framework/libraries. Not to mention buying a Mac and paying Apple $100 for a developer account.

Android, on the other hand, was pretty straightforward to get started with for me as someone with Java experience.

Getting started is one thing, completing a product is another. It's not an uncommon metric to apply a 1.5x or 2x multiplier to the development time of an iOS app to obtain the time to develop the Android one. I would also argue that from the same starting point (no java experience and no Swift experience) the learning curve is way smoother on iOS, with more fine tuned APIs and better tools (interface builder can be picked up easily by a designer with no coding background).

Perhaps, but most studies show that they start on iOS to begin with.

Google is working on it:

https://github.com/domokit/sky_engine and https://github.com/dart-lang/fletch

This looks like more of a side project than something Google is going to put its weight behind. I am pretty excited for Fletch though - I hope it turns into something like React Native, which would be much improved using Dart and Dart tools instead of JavaScript IMO.

Right now Fletch looks pretty awkward/painful to use though. Writing views completely natively (ObjC/Swift/Java) and then calling into a DartVM for business logic doesn't sound like a fun way to develop to me. I could be wrong, I haven't tried to use Fletch - just read some examples, but right now I don't see the benefit.

Sky is basically Cordova as far as I can tell. It dumps native looking views into a webview and calls it a day. The demo app on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.domokit.sk...) does not make me terribly excited for it :(

Sky is in early stages, but I think it has good potential and in active development. I think they made the app on Google play quite some time ago during dart summit as a demo, so maybe examples in the repository is a better place to look.

Also, looks like they will name it as Flutter: https://flutter.github.io/getting-started/

I'd be really curious to hear what makes Dart tools awesome. I haven't played with Dart, but JS has some of the best tooling I've used. Have you tried webpack and hotloading? Have you tried npm (with webpack to generate client-side bundles) as your dependency manager?

Is sky engine a Google project?

It is an open source project, but check the contributors, you will see Adam Barth, Ian Hickson, Eric Seidel and other Chrome engineers.

It really isnt hard to write iOS or Android apps. I think you just like Javascript.

I don't think the argument is whether or not iOS or Android apps are more difficult to write. But coming from the perspective of an early stage startup, React Native is an absolute game changer. Our same two engineers can build our iOS, Android, and web app. Code can be reused. Cuts dev costs significantly. Amazing.

The developers of those platforms created distinctive OSs with distinctive features. They would certainly dispute that "90% of apps out there don't need that level of control." Their point of view is that they are innovating in the OS, and apps that take advantage of features unique to a platform will have an advantage over those that don't. On Android, there is no cross-platform equivalent to Android IPC and RPC mechanisms. No Android Wear or Android Automotive. No Android TV UI. No cross-platform printing. Etc.

If you don't need to push the features envelope of the mobile platforms you are targeting, and if you are OK with having L&F that isn't native, and if you are OK with the pace at which your cross-platform tools chase the native platforms, then cross-platform tools like React Native can be fine for you.

Objective-C is fine, and Swift even more so. If you don't know the platform sure, it is difficult, but that applies to any platform. When you learn native, all those web-tech monstrosities have zero appeal.

iOS development will always be native for me, the tools are not perfect, but they feel right, I can get stuff done in no time. Android on the other hand... I can't express how much I loathe the tools and language. So much that I stopped caring. React native might be an alternative.

Lock-in.

It's already damn easy to develop apps. Objective-C is just fine.

The only reason you think it's not easy is because you're using Titanium, and not embracing the different platforms' native toolkits.

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